Dear Back Labor: I never wanted to meet you, ever. Move along.

Dear Back Labor:

Your reputation precedes you. I've heard that you're the most nasty, unrelenting, unapologetic nemesis of the laboring woman. I've heard you're a jerk, and frankly, I just don't like jerks in my life! I made up my mind that I never wanted to meet you. I pulled in the welcome mat, and was determined to be as standoffish to you as possible, hoping you'd decide I was too rude to you to make your acquaintance, and you'd move along.

You didn't get the memo! You decided to introduce yourself to me last night, and you know what, you ARE the jerk everyone says you are. So I'm telling you quite plainly, BUZZ OFF! I met you last night, I never want to encounter you again! Mmmkay? Thanks.

Signed,
Matthew's Mommy

Whoooooboy was last night eventful. DH and I were sitting and watching a movie, and suddenly I sat straight up with the most intense back pain I've ever had in my life. It started square on my tailbone, and radiated a little up and down and then around my front like a belt and then like squeezed me together. I had weird cramps and spasms and overall pain. Then my front would contract forward. I'd be like this for several minutes and then the pain would shift to a dull ache until the next wave. I got a chance to put in to practice all the stuff I've been learning in class--I don't think I've ever been in so many creative positions as I was last night. I was on all fours, I was doing pelvic tilts, I was pacing the house, I was in the fetal position, I was in the shower, in the bath, over the birthing ball--anything to get a little relief. Poor DH was pulling out every massage aide and technique we know. This went on for many hours and the longer it lasted, the more I was thinking that this could actually be it. I talked to the doula, and she said that since they weren't increasing in intensity of frequency (goodness, could they get more intense than that??), it was probably just practice/preparation. This was DEFINITELY a dress rehearsal! YIKES! Am I really ready for this? All I kept thinking was "I'm not ready, I'm not ready!" Do you EVER feel ready?

I knew about Braxton Hicks and about false/practice labor. I DIDN'T know that you could have practice back labor! How NOT fun was THAT!

Things finally calmed down enough for me to fall asleep in the recliner on a heating pad but then about an hour later I woke up. The power in our house is really weird. It's been doing this thing where it just goes out in the middle of the night. (It's ALWAYS at night). Usually it comes back on right away which is super fun because it turns on all the devices and lights with it. Last night it went out and stayed out. Once the heating pad cooled off, I woke up. I had to wake DH because I don't know how to mess with the breaker and stuff. Poor thing was out there at 3 in the morning, trying to get it to come on. He tried again and again but it would flip out again immediately. But for some reason, part of our garage retained power. So then he's digging around in the middle of the night for extension cords to run from that outlet to our fridge and freezer, and then he ran one back to the back of the house to our room for my heating pad. Some time in the middle of the night things came back on (hence my ability to blog) but our poor house looks so sad right now! Thankfully, our neighbor is an electrician so he's going to come help us tonight and see if we can't figure out what's going on. We're really praying it's something small and inexpensive to fix but we also know our home is 40 years old with mostly original wiring, so it would be reasonable for this to be a major problem, too.

Not a lot of news on DH. The best they can figure is that he has viral bronchitis. They're going to re-run his bloodwork next week to see if anything has developed but that's their best guess. The bloodwork did say he was recently exposed to Legionella Pneumonia but recently could be a week ago or a year ago. One suspicion is that's what he had at the beginning of December, and then with his weakened immune system, he caught some kind of virus. Because it's a virus, it's impervious to antibiotics. So they've just told him to try to sleep/drown it out and he can't really go anywhere because they said his immune system is too weak to be out in public and risk catching something else. Poor guy is going stir crazy--tomorrow will be exactly 1 month since he first got sick! So we'd love your prayers for quick healing for him. I really really want him to be better before Matthew comes.

All the activity seemed to die down around 5:00 this morning and there's been no further labor-activity. Now my body is just tired and sore in a "what in the world just happened to me??" sort of way. So we're just taking it easy today and trying to rest a little. I may pack my hospital bag today too, just in case ;) I was just at the doctor yesterday--we're opting not to do cervical checks but we did spend time on the monitor yesterday and they did another ultrasound to check fluid levels (heart rate, fluid, and position were all fine!) Doc said he saw no indication of baby going anywhere soon....but last night sure made me think differently!

Anyway, that's the excitement from this end of the world!